Publication details
Transfer of Primary Attachment Figures from Early to Late Adolescence: Four-Cohort and Six-Wave Longitudinal Research
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| Year of publication | 2019 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| Citation | |
| Description | “During adolescence…other adults may come to assume an importance equal to or greater than that of parents (Bowlby, 1969/1982, p.207).” However, adolescents’ transfer of primary attachment figures has been unclear. Only a few longitudinal studies, which are necessary to understand a “transfer” between two-time points, exist (Friedlmeier & Granqvist, 2006; Mayseless, 2004). Hence, this longitudinal study prospectively examined the transfer of early to late adolescents’ attachment figures. Methods: We recruited 215 adolescents (Mage =14.02, SD=2.05, ranged from 11- to 18-year-olds). We employed a 6-wave two-year longitudinal design with 4 different cohorts (5th, 7th, 9th, & 11th graders). To assess adolescents’ attachment transfer, adolescents completed the important people interview (IPI; Rosenthal & Kobak, 2010), developed based on Bowlby’s conceptualization of attachment behavioral system. The IPI consists of three questions, for each of which adolescents wrote their primary attachment figures. Results and Discussions: Cross-sectional latent class analyses revealed that 3-class models fit our data the best. We found that the adolescents in two classes exclusively chose parents or romantic partner, but the adolescents in one class did not choose friends exclusively. Subsequently, we conducted a latent transition analysis with 6-wave data altogether. We found that adolescents who have once transferred their primary attachment figures from parents to peers (friends and romantic partners) were unlikely to shift back from peers to parents. Friends were not as strong attachment figures as parents or romantic partners but they mediated adolescents’ transfer of attachment figures from parents to romantic partners. For many adolescents, particularly late adolescents, it took four or fewer months until their romantic partners became the primary attachment figure. |
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